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Emily Lakdawalla • Jan 13, 2008

Just a million kilometers away

Here's the latest photo from Mercury (see my previous post for the three images preceding this one). There are a lot more features visible in this photo than there have been in previous photos; MESSENGER is getting close enough to resolve featuresthat are the size of the craters peppering Mercury's ancient surface.

MESSENGER approaches Mercury

NASA / JHUAPL / CIW

MESSENGER approaches Mercury
MESSENGER snapped this image of a crescent Mercury through its narrow-angle camera on January 12 at 09:06 UTC when it was about 1.2 million kilometers from the planet.
Identifying craters in MESSENGER's Mercury approach images

NASA / JHUAPL / CIW / Solar System Simulator / Jason Perry

Identifying craters in MESSENGER's Mercury approach images

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